Cinque Terre, Italy
5 Cities: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, Monterosso
The view from our hotel room in Riomaggiore looking down the hill towards the sea.
I was continuously impressed by the vineyards carved into terraced hills. On a long hike one day we went way up into the hills and got to walk through some of these. Often the path was only a couple feet wide with an 8 foot drop down into the vines. The walls holding the terraces were made of stones and must have taken years and years to construct.
This picture and the next tell a story. Look on the left where you see those train tracks. Up on that cliff is the town of Corniglia. The normal path from Manarola to Corniglia was closed, so we took a much longer, more difficult alternative path. It lead us high up on the hill (you'll see how high in the next picture). The thing to grasp here is that the town of Corniglia, on a cliff above the train tracks, is quite a ways above the sea. It is a good multiple-minute stair climb to get into the town from sea level. Here you can see we are much higher even than the town.
Here we are now in Corniglia. You can look at the train tracks and sea to see how far above those we are. Also, look in the upper left corner of the picture, above that cliff. There are some houses up there that you can't really make out in this picture, except for a little tan color. Anyway, we were up by those houses on our hike (that is about where the previous picture was taken from).
Vernazza, looking from the pier back at the town.
I'm not positive if this is Corniglia or Vernazza but you can see Monterosso faintly on the shore in the upper part of the picture.
Jamie taking a swim in Corniglia. Most of the swimming in the Cinque Terre is done just like this--find some rocks and carefully slide into the water. There is one sandy beach on Monterosso, but that town is also the most touristed.